Dogpound are back with their awesome third album, simply titled "III", which is receiving rave reviews from fans and critics alike, including here at HardRockHouse.com. We thought we’d find out more about the guys, so Paul Williams caught up with guitarist Micke Dahlqvist.

 Thanks for finding the time to talk to us Micke….

MD - Hi Paul! It's all my pleasure! And I have to take the opportunity to thank you for your absolutely awesome review of "III", It's an indescribable feeling to read such good stuff...I feel like an open wound every time we release a record, you know? The expectations was high this time around since we had such a positive response on "A Night In The Gutter"...we simply had to come up with a record that kicked the crap out of "A.N.T.I.G.", and so far it seems like we have... :) The overall response this time around have been far beyond our wildest dreams and...well, right now it's happy days in the Pound!

Firstly, for people who may not yet be familiar with Dogpound, can you introduce yourself and the other members of the band to our readers…

MD - Ok, here goes: It's Hea Andersson on vocals, Figge Danielsson on bass, Tuka Boman on the drums and me, Micke on the guitar. We got together back in '99, initially to play as a cover band, but we didn't get as far as doing the first gig even before we kicked that idea out the door and decided to do original material instead. During the 90's, me and Figge was in a prog metal band called World Of Silence and I was one half of the songwriting force in that band, but at the end of the 90's, and a couple of records later I kinda got fed up with it, and wanted to play music with more focus on the song itself than on the composition. That was when the seed of what would become Dogpound was sown. When we got together I asked the other guys if they'd be interested in trying out some songs I had written a couple of weeks before. And they thought it sounded cool so we went for it. The initial thoughts about the sound of the band was to do heavy rock with a lot of emphasis on the vocal parts. We were all very much into King's X and Galactic Cowboys (the worlds most underrated band!) at the time so the base of our sound is very much inspired from these two bands, but a lot has happened since that day in October 1999... :)

I understand that you’ve known singer Hea since you were 10 or 11 years old…what sort of effect does such a long and close friendship have on the band, if any ?

MD - Yeah, we've known each other for a bit over 20 years (man...I'm getting old...) but we had never worked together until 1998 when we had a pint at the local pub late one night and decided to start a 70's rock cover band ...we got it together and started doing gigs shortly thereafter, doing mainly Zeppelin and Purple songs. The first gig we played was more or less magic...At that very moment he opened his mouth I realised that the vocalist I had been searching for all my life was living 500 meters away from me...! I had heard him sing a couple of times before, never in a hard rock situation though even though I knew that was what he listened to. I never had the time to start something with him due to the other two bands I was busy with, both doing gigs and recording albums. But, we finally got together and here we are today! We get along extremely well (all four of us do, both in the band and outside) and are the best of friends. We've never been in a fight over anything, we have pretty much the same ideas about the way things should be done and when working in the studio for example, the dialogue between us is 100% straight forward, what needs to be said is said and we have a tremendous amount of respect for each other. It's the kind of relationship that if one of us is thinking of something, the other one is already doing it! So it's all positive stuff.

The band has been together since before the first album was released, which seems pretty rare these days. What strengths do you think each individual member brings to the band ?

MD - Tuka is the perfect combination of Bill Ward and John Bonham, cool, heavy in his style of playing and he hits hard as hell! There's not one part of the drum kit that hasn't been replaced because he's banged it to death! The first time we rehearsed he broke his snare drum in five minutes of playing! He's one of the coolest drummers I've ever played with and there has been a few over the years I can say, he may not have the perfect technical chops, Mike Portnoy style you know, but he's the perfect guy for Dogpound. Figge is the easiest going guy I've known in my entire life. The word "problem" don't exist in his vocabulary! We've played together for 19 years now in different bands...when he plugs his bass in, it's instant thunder that comes out of his amp and he knows where to put his parts to complement the guitar the best way...he often tunes down a whole step, to A, (He uses 5 or 6 string basses and I use 7-string guitars) bringing out the total low end. A lot of the Dogpound sound is built around the fact that we have that extra low string. And Hea...well, listen to our albums. It kinda says it all! He's just awesome! But the biggest strenght of all is that we all have the same goal. And our own special way of achieving it...If someone in the band would be replaced, I'm pretty sure it would never be the same how hard we'd try. Both Tuka and Figge has such personal styles and they really put their mark on the songs by playing them in their own way.

Moving onto current matters, your new album, "III", is out – what has been the initial reaction ?

MD - The medias response has been overwhelming so far. 95% of the reviews I've seen so far is in the top of the scale, 8, 9/10 and a couple of bulls eyes. "III" was released in Japan in June and in it's first 2 weeks there it sold nearly as much as the previous two have done worldwide...so now we're just waiting to hear the first sales figures of the rest of the world...! The European press, especially the English, have been awesome, and so far what we've seen from USA has been equally great. So we cross our fingers and hope for the best! It's all kinda scary at the same time as it is the greatest feeling ever....comments like "They have taken massive strides to join the upper echelons of their genre and this album deserves to be huge", (nudge, nudge!) "Dogpound have built a reputation for being one of the best up and coming melodic metal bands", (I wasn't aware of that one...!) and "Overall, a phenomenal effort"...It really makes you wonder, you know...maybe there's a place for us out there after all! As the main songwriter of the band it really puts the pressure on me and all of a sudden we're in the position that the next album will be compared with an album that is a hit in the media...and rock critics can get ugly if you don't deliver what they expect of you! You know what I'm talking about! :)

Have you been surprised by the level of critical acclaim it has received or did you instinctively know you had come up with something a bit special ?

MD - It's a huge surprise...in the most positive way possible! From day one in the studio if felt better than it ever did, but we didn't let us get our hopes up. You just never know what the reviews will say...I've been kinda surprised by the reviews we've had on the previous discs. On "The Hellbum" a lot of people gave us a hard time because they thought the cover was wrong...we thought it was great! One guy slayed it just because he expected a prog metal album just because we're on Lion Music,our record label, that usually release albums in that style! "A.N.I.T.G." got it's fair share of strange writing too, one guy saying it sucked because when he heard the opening riffs to "Capt Hook & Jesus" it reminded him of some old sleeze band he loved 20 years ago...and we weren't sleeze, therefore we were crap! I e-mailed him and congratulated him on his new custom beer coaster, courtesy of Dogpound! :) But overall, the response on the previous records have been very positive. When we listened to first mix of "III" we all felt it was way better than anything we've done before and so far the media agrees! It would fell like s**t to be in a situation where we really thought that we'd done something really amazing and the press kills it. I think it's typically Swedish to think in the way we do...never get your hopes up, you might get hurt if you do so better safe than sorry...or something silly like that!

I understand you changed your writing process this time around and wrote a lot of songs, whittling them down to the final selection that appear on the record…why the change ?

MD - "A.N.I.T.G." took an extremely long time to mix, due to some really unfortunate events that was more or less an act of God, it was no ones fault, so to speak. During the time we waited for the mix to be done, I got so bored with it that I started to write new songs as far back as in January 2005. Earlier we've recorded the album, promoted it and then I take a break from the Dogpound circus for a couple of months which always results in that I get stressed like hell when I realize that I have to write 6 new songs in 3 days because there ain't enough songs to fill the album and the studio is booked and the release date is set and...panic!! ! There just had to be a change in the working procedure!!

So will you keep this new winning formula for the next album ?

MD - Yep! The result was obviously a good one so there will be the same procedure again. Right now I have 6 songs done for the next album...if they'll be on it or not, time will tell but the process is off to a flying start! And there's a logic to it at the same time...if you have a lot to choose from, the end result oughta be better than if you release all the songs you got at the moment. The way we decide what songs will be on the record is by gut reaction. If it feels good at once, it's a keeper, if not, it's the trash can for that one and back to the drawing board! There's a risk that we throw away the big #1 hit song, but it's the way it has always worked with us, so it's a chance we have to take!

I believe a video to "Glass Jar" is now available…how did you decide which song to release ?

MD - There was a couple of different reasons that "Glass Jar" was the one we picked. First, one of the guys in the band (I will not mention who it was!) had tears in his eyes the first time he heard it when it was done, and a lot of fans and other people around us have said to us that it's the obvious first single. And it's a good song to describe what we're about, in my opinion. It's not perfection by far , I don't think we've done the best Dogpound album or song yet, but at the time, it's one of the most shining moments of our career.

Any thoughts on what the follow up single might be ?

MD - We'll do another video in the beginning of the next year, most likely it'll be for the song "Human Hologram"...or maybe "Other Way Around". We'll see..:)

Have you got any plans for any live dates to build upon the momentum of this release ?

MD - Not at the moment. But if the right opportunity shows up we'll absolutely get out on the road. We've had a few offers, both as support act and as headline, but they've been no good. The brutal truth is that there have to be some money involved for us to be able to go on tour, and most offers that come our way is like: "You pay for you travels, your food, your hotels and then you sell merchandise at the venue and pay your bills that way." And it wouldn't work in a million years. We all have families and we couldn't possibly take the risk of making them homeless just because we want to get out on the road. The bills have to be paid, you know...I know it sounds kinda greedy, but it's a bitter fact. If we were 18 years old and lived with our parents we could do it, but we're in our early 30's and have to work to feed our loved ones...! But it would be awesome to get out there and meet the fans...Someday it'll happen, but at the moment I don't know when. Be patient, one day we'll be there to kick some ass!

Where do you see the band in 5 years’ time ? Is there anything in particular you hope to have achieved by then ?

MD - First of all I hope we're still around to make some noise! You'll never know what fate has in store for you...But if we are, we've probably made a couple of more records, hopefully done some touring, released a DVD and conquered the world... ;) I must say that what is on top of my wish list is to do a tour in the USA...I've never been there, none of us have, but, man....it's the land built on dreams, isn't it? And so many of our musical heroes are from there...I think our style of music appeals to Americans so maybe one day it'll happen... :)

You have been with Lion Music for all three of your albums, tell us about your relationship with them…

MD - Back in 2001, we got in contact with Lasse at Lion and he said that he liked what we did, but at the time ha had no plans to sign any new bands. So we went for another label that everyone we talked to warned us of, but eager as we were to get our debut out, we signed with them anyway...and in hindsight. owe shouldn't have! we should have listened to the warnings...of course! Once the papers were signed, we never heard from them again. They didn't answer e-mails, phone calls, nothing. So all we could do was to sit on our asses and wait for the contract to run out. We were even considering to quit at the time, but we decided to record one last demo and give it one last shot. So we did. And when the contract with the unnamed record label was over, we sent the new songs to Lasse, who still wasn't interested in signing new bands...! At this time Ola Sonmark (the guy that mixed and co - produced our first two albums, an extremely talented guy) offered us free studio time in his studio to record one last demo, he thought we were too good to quit so he did what he could for us. The result was a two song demo, hauled off to Lasse and this time he made an exception and offered us a record deal...the rest is history.

There has been a lot of talk recently on various message boards about the current state of the melodic rock scene – what are your thoughts ?

MD - I honestly don't know! I'm not that much into the melodic rock scene, neither of us are, believe it or not! And I hardly ever check the message boards either...so I'm pretty much the wrong guy to ask anything about this! But I'll do my best to answer your question...A couple of things that I've heard is that some of the reunited 80's hair metal bands are having some serious success touring the states which I think is really cool! I've never been into that scene myself, back in the 80's I was into heavy and thrash metal, but the fact that they are back doing these huge gigs are just amazing! I don't know if Y & T are considered to be a hair metal band, but I just saw a recently recorded live DVD with them and it was awesome! I really like their early albums, don't know much of their albums after "Contagious", and I wasn't even aware that they still existed so that was a pleasant surprise! But I guess that the melodic rock scene is alive and well, at least to a certain extent...you'll almost never hear anything about it here in Sweden, but in other countries there seem to be quite a following. UK's Firefest has some great bands on the bill and obviously the tickets have been selling faster than ever...I'd love to be there, Demon doing their last gig and they're childhood heroes of mine, I was about 10 years old when I got "The Unexpected Guest" and I love it to this day! Harem Scarem (awesome band!) is also there and one of my later favourites, Threshold.

Do you get much time to listen to other bands’ CDs these days and if you do, what has impressed you recently ?

MD - Yeah, I listen to music all the time! At home, in the car, on the train...everywhere! As I mentioned earlier I really enjoy the latest Threshold album, "Dead Reckoning", the debut from Green Dollar Colour that I was introduced to by a Dogpound fan is just amazing! The new Alter Bridge album "Blackbird" that I just got is spinning in the cd player at the moment, The new Nightwish album kinda took me by surprise. I've never been into their stuff, but "Dark Passion Play" is phenomenal! And the band I like the most right now is Breaking Benjamin! Their album "Phobia" is probably the best album from a "new" band I've heard in ages. Are they considered emo? Then I'll probably get my ass kicked, but who cares? :) Good music is good music whatever label you put on it.

If you could play on the same bill as any other band, who would it be and why ?

MD - Just one band? Then it would be a reunited Galactic Cowboys. They are without a doubt the most underrated band ever! Great songs, great playing and beautiful vocals and a big influence on Dogpound, especially in the early days. Me and Figge were going to a concert here in Sweden some years ago with G.C. as support act and King's X as headline. When we got to the venue, we saw a sign that read: "One more band added to the bill, Freak Kitchen." And we just couldn't believe our eyes! Freak Kitchen was another of our fave bands at the time. We entered the venue just to find another sign inside: Galactic Cowboys and Freak Kitchen have postponed, only King's X will be on tonight." Bummer...some time later, we found out that G.C. had thrown in the towel. And that's such a pity...But if they reunite and need a support act, they can give us a call!

Lastly, our standard wrap-up question…Is there anything else you’d like to add that we haven’t covered so far ?

MD - A big salute to all our friends out there in the world, both old and new! You know who you are, without you we're noting... If you who reads this never heard of us, please check us out at www.myspace.com/dogpoundsweden for sound clips. And if you have heard of us, check it out anyway for the latest news on what's going on in the pound!

Well thanks once again for taking the time out to talk to us and we wish you continued success with the outstanding new album.

MD - Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview, Paul, and once again thanks for the awesome review! Hopefully we'll see each other one day...you'll never know! Cheers, Micke/Dogpound

Dogpound's new album, III, is out now via Lion Music. To read the HRH review of the CD then click here